Shards of Shallot
by The Elvish Raindancer
Summary: A What If done to The Lady of Shallot
1. Prelude

Shards of Shallot

By Orel Duano

            The battle had been more like a quick skirmish for three of the Gundam pilots.  Pilots 03,04, and 05 had been assigned to take out a well-hidden ammunitions plant in Northwest England; Oz had been relying heavily on that plant after several others had been taken out.  They had arrived at the rendezvous area roughly two miles off the coast and swarmed the building.  Only a meager amount of mobile suits were protecting this plant, as the other two pilots were wreaking havoc harrying semi-important headquarters.

            While there was little opposition, Sandrock had taken damage to its hydraulic line of the left leg, making movement only possible through the vernier engines.  Heavyarms and Shenlong had sustained minimal damage, but their pilots decided to make repairs at the designated safe house as well.  Neither one wanted pilot 04 to stay there alone, the most vocal arguments on their minds was the fact that this safe house was haunted, and with pilot 04's high empathy level he would be prone to its fondness for mischief.

            Indeed there were rumors that the castle was haunted, and everyone left well enough alone, except for the pilots that is.  The last tenant had been a solitary figure, considered by some to have been a witch as when she died, the castle burst into flames for only a moment before the flames put themselves out.  Left in the place of a once grand castle was a burnt out shell of former glory.  Walls were falling with decay and neglect, weeds now overran once perfect gardens, and any wood in the structure not burned had rotted away.  Once great wheat field could have been seen out its turrets, but the farmers had abandoned even that as the castle threw stone, and fire, and caused earthquakes, pestilence, and volatile soil to remover their presence.  The wheat fields were now swampy bogs and piles of rubble perfectly situated for the hiding of large mobile suits.

            Almost too perfectly all three of the pilots thought as they left the safely of their gundams and entered the castle door.  The inside of the castle was in as much disarray as the courtyard and surrounding fields.  Tapestries were partially burnt, and partially rotted, their once majestic scenes barely discernable.  Nothing but dust had disturbed the castle after the farmers had been scared away, not even a tiny spider dared to weave its web in the dusty corridors.

            The three pilots carefully made their way up the decrepit stairwell, hoping to find a suitable room to sleep in.  The stairs led to a single wooden door that had been rusted shut several decades ago.  At least, it seemed like it had been rusted shut for none could open the door, but when they started to return down the stairs the door silently swung in and a rush of fetid and stale air flowed past them.  In unison they drew their guns and made their way into the room.

            Close inspection revealed little.  On one wall, near the window was a loom with a partially finished weaving.  In front of the loom was a broken mirror.  Some of the glass remained in the golden oval frame, but most had been scattered across the floor.  Pilot 04 picked up one of the larger pieces of glass and glanced in it.  Behind him, in the middle of the room was the decaying figure of the mirror's owner.  Ashen skin had sunken into the hollows of her bones, brittle hair was pulled back into knot fashionable in medieval times, though it was her rotted dress that told him it was the era of King Arthur Pendragon.  This realization caused his hand to clutch compulsively on the glass shard, slicing his finger open just enough for a few drops of blood to well up.  Instinct made him raise his hand sharply to suck on the wound; it also caused a drop of blood to fall onto the unfinished tapestry.  This set to motion an ancient curse once more.


	2. History Repeating . . . Supposedly

Shards of Shallot part II

By Orel Duano

_There she weaves by night and day_

_A magic web with colours gay._

_She has heard a whisper say,_

_A curse is on her if she stay_

_            To look down to Camelot._

_She knows not what the curse may be,_

_And so she weaveth steadily,_

_And little other care hath she,_

            The Lady of Shallot. 

"What were you saying Quatre?" Trowa asked.  He was sure he had just heard poetry recited.

"Oh, this room just reminded me of an infamous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson," was the reply from around a thumb.

Wufei was the closest to Quatre and raised an eyebrow before asking "And what did you do?"

"This?"  Quatre pulled out the no longer bleeding digit.  Just nicked it on a piece of glass.  Nothing serious."

"Uh huh.  Nothing serious about getting an open wound from a shard of glass that has been collecting dust for the past couple centuries.  We should get some antiseptic on it just in case."

"You're probably right, I think I have some down in Sandrock."

"I'm coming with," Wufei added.

"Me too," said Trowa.  "This room gives me the creeps."

The trio moved towards the door, which suddenly closed shut much like it opened.  "Yep, defiantly gives out those wonderful wiggins," Quatre said softly.

Wufei approached the door rigidly, and a simple test showed that they were locked in there.  And that wasn't all.  The door started to melt into solid brickwork, leaving them with only a small window to look out of.  "This would be a bad time to admit claustrophobia," he stated.

A small voice from near the loom caused them all to start.  "It's been so long since I've had any visitors.  In fact, you're the first ones to come to my sewing room, even when I was alive.

"It's been quite lonely here since I broke my mirror.  That's why you can't leave, I won't permit it."

It was the ghost of the Lady of Shallot, the one Quatre had seen in the mirror fragment.  "What the hell," was all Trowa could get out at the moment, while Wufei and Quatre were unable to speak at all.

"Tennyson had help with his ballad of me," the ghost started.  "I wanted to be remembered, to have my story told.  He stayed not too far from here so I sent him dreams of how things were.  He was the closest thing to a companion I had, but he left.  Something you will never do.

"But, I have to do something first.  You see, when blood got on my mirror and weaving, you gained my curse.  Well, one of you did.  So now I will send you on your way; your blood will freeze and forever you will remain my companion.  The other two will just rot and die."

Quatre blanched at the news, but the floor below him opened up before he could say anything.  The floor closed up after he was swallowed, leaving no chance of rescue.  The fall was short, as bricks flew up to create a sort of slide, directing where he landed.

Eventually he landed in the dungeon area, where two wooden doors once stood.  One led to stairs covered in moss and slime caused by river water seeping through cracks.  The other led more to the center of the castle.  Knowing that he was supposed to follow in the crazy ghost's footsteps he did just the opposite and went back into the castle to find help there.

It was a crazy idea, but this was a crazy predicament.  Quatre ran down the causeways and took the occasional corner.  Twice he ended up back up where he had landed, and both times he turned around and followed his path back into the castle.  The third time he walked and studied the walls for a secret passageway.

But the curse was working its way through his body anyways.  Each step he got a little bit colder, and a little slower as his blood slowly began to freeze.  He stopped to rest against a rusted sconce that had been placed sporadically down the causeway.  His weight caused it to shift down and open a secret stairway that led back up to the ground floor of the castle.

Back in the tower the ghost of Shallot was watching Quatre's progress through the pieces of the mirror still in the frame.  Wufei and Trowa were watching over her shoulder, grinning every time Quatre did something to cause her to scowl; like opening up a secret passageway and returning back into the castle.  But even they could see that the curse had taken hold anyways.

Wufei wondered if Tennyson's poem had a clue in how to get the upper hand.  "I hate to interrupt your watching game m'Lady," he nearly spat out in disgust, "but what did Tennyson write about you?"

"Flattery will get you no where."

"Every condemned person gets a last request, this is mine."

"And here I thought you'd go out kicking and screaming . . . I don't see what the harm will be.  Except to put you to sleep, it's pretty long."

"We're not going anywhere."

"Too true."

_On either side the river lie_

_Long fields of barely and of rye,_

_That clothe the wold and meet the sky;_

_And thro' the field the road runs by_

_                To many tower'd Camelot;_

_And up and down the people go,_

_Gazing where the lilies blow_

_Round an island there below,_

_                The island of Shallot._

_Willows whiten, aspens quiver,_

_Little breezes dusk and shiver_

_Thro' the wave that runs for ever_

_By the island in the river_

_                Floating down to Camelot._

_Four grey walls, and four grey towers,_

_Overlook a space of flowers,_

_And the silent isle embowers_

_                The Lady of Shallot._

_By the margin, willow-veil'd,_

_Slide the heavy barges trail'd_

_By the slow horses; and unhail'd_

_The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd_

_                Skimming down to Camelot;_

_But who hath seem her wave her hand?_

_Or at the casement seen her stand?_

_Or is she known in all the land,_

_                The Lady of Shallot?_

_Only reapers, reaping early_

_In among the bearded barley,_

_Hear a song that echoes cheerly,_

_From a river winding clearly,_

_                Down to tower'd Camelot;_

_And by the moon the reapers weary_

_Piling sheaves in upland airy,_

_Listening, whispers 'Tis the fairy_

_                Lady of Shallot.'_

_There she weaves by night and day_

_A magic web with colours gay._

_She has heard a whisper say,_

_A curse is on her if she stays_

_                To look down to Camelot._

_She knows not what that curse may be,_

_And so she weaveth steadily,_

_And little other care hath she,_

_                The Lady of Shallot._

_And moving thro' a mirror clear_

_That hangs before her all the year,_

_Shadows of the world appear._

_There she sees a highway near_

_                Winding down to Camelot:_

_There the river eddy whirls,_

_And there the surly village-churls,_

_And the red cloaks of market girls,_

_                Pass onward from Shallot._

           The poem was only about halfway finished but Wufei had already stopped listening.  Trowa was looking in the mirror confusedly, since Quatre was no longer in sight.  Something had stuck in both their minds from the poem and previous conversation; the loom was an important part in the curse.

            The ghost had noticed that she no longer had an audience and went back to the mirror herself.  She cussed most unladylike when she realized she had lost track of her prey.  Trowa and Wufei were discussing possible tactics when she cried in triumph.  "Frozen solid!  Though not quite dead yet.

            "Have you ever been told how horrid it feels to freeze to death from the inside?  It's a nasty way to go, and nothing can warm you up again.  Except for maybe a funeral pyre, but that comes a bit too late, don't you think?"

            They had the same idea when she mentioned the pyre.  Trowa had a book of matches and Wufei had a dragon Zippo in his pocket, and they moved unpretentiously to the loom.  Hopefully torching the cursed loom would have some effect.


End file.
